I made the mistake of taking Rachel shopping at the mall the other day offering to buy a few business outfits for the fall season in New York. It is the high end UTC mall in La Jolla, a very nice outdoor piece of mall property. She took me into a Zara store and my mind was blown.
It looked like a 500 car pileup of women (after the cars had been removed). Woman were walking around in a daze, yelling and throwing items of clothing in every direction as if they were looking for their purse or wallet. It was like a rugby match meets a stock market chat room. There were no dressing rooms in operation. I took cover on the floor next to a main floor beam and threw a credit card at Rachel and wished her the best. I never knew…now I know.
Onwards…
Last month, on July 13th to be exact, I wrote about the CPI for the very first time in 16 years of writing the blog. It was a goal never to write about it and here I am now doing a follow up.
That is because today CPI printed 8.5% (overall index) vs. 9.1% last month, Core (excluding food/energy) was 5.9% (same as last month).
Last month I wrote:
While everyone argues about why and who to blame, the real question is when will I be able to stop writing about the damn CPI?
I wish I knew.
I think there is an old saying that states the only cure for high prices is higher prices. For me that statement just makes me think of Venezuela so I would prefer people stop using it.
Today, the world will be freaking out about the 9.1% CPI print in the United States.
The stock market has been acting like this was coming and now we will see what it takes to price in MORE Fed interest rate hikes and more fear of continued high inflation.
The market have staged a very nice rally starting July 14th following the huge 9 percent CPI and today is just another reminder that the markets are forward looking.
The markets are shooting higher again this morning on what looks like a surprise low CPI number below 6 percent.
Next stop are the 200-day moving averages.
Congrats to those that were buying some stocks in June and or not panicking.
If you felt sick in June because you owned too much stock, today will be a better day to panic and reposition your weightings.
